


falling/falling/falling

by embraidery



Series: of gods & entities [1]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Falling out of the sky, Gen, Horror, Psychological Horror, Vertigo - Freeform, not-drowning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22236751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embraidery/pseuds/embraidery
Summary: The familiar, ancient story, retold with a new (ancient) fear.
Series: of gods & entities [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600660
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	falling/falling/falling

The sun is hot on his back, almost too hot: the bronze grabs the light and twists it back into Icarus' skin, heavy and golden, pounding his back in time with his heartbeat. He twists in long loops and swoops, enjoying the breeze, enjoying the view of the ocean far, far  below. 

But something is wrong. The pleasant prickly heat has transmuted into a wet, oozing heat not unlike blood pooling on his skin. Icarus feels a shifting across his back and arms. A single bronze feather falls in front of his eyes, dislodging itself from his shoulder and twirling 

down 

down 

down 

to the sea.

Icarus can't touch the feathers to see how many more are coming loose; he has to keep his arms out to catch the wind. The sun flashes in his eyes and panic and bile rise in his throat and without thinking Icarus pulls into a steep dive to escape the sharp rays of the sun. 

Despite his fear, the thrill of the dive makes him whoop with joy and adrenaline. He stretches his arms out even farther and enjoys the rippling of air past his fingers and feathers. But then more and more of his bronze feathers begin to spiral away from him. The wind rips his scream from his throat.

Distracted by the feathers, it takes him a second to notice that the swooping in his stomach has curdled, leaving him with a horrible sense of vertigo. He's barely out of control, not enough that he wants to come to a screeching halt, but enough that terror surges through his veins. 

He doesn't want to look down. He's on a knife's edge, and looking down would tip him just to the wrong side. But he can't help his deadly curiosity.

The sea is gone.

He can't even scream in his horror. He just keeps hurtling down into empty blue nothingness at a reckless, uncontrollable speed. All his joy at flying has been stripped from him by the unfeeling wind. He tries to swoop up towards the sun again, but all his feathers are gone. He pats his arms, stretches over his shoulders to his back, but not a single feather remains. 

Icarus screws his eyes shut and wishes fervently for the sea. He may die in this endless ocean of sky, but it wouldn't be any death he would recognise. He's still plummeting towards nowhere, picking up speed as he goes, such speed that the wind beats his skin raw.

He opens his eyes against the buffeting wind, just for an instant. The sea is once again a million miles below him. With his eyes shut tight Icarus prays to Apollo to catch him in his sun chariot, to Zeus to call off his deadly winds, to Poseidon to catch him in the waves’ gentle embrace, to Hades to give him a peaceful afterlife.

It's hard to tell how long he falls for, but he spends long enough bracing himself for the inevitable collision with water like stone that he eventually cracks one eye open. 

With that, he collapses gently into the sea. He holds perfectly still, assuming that this is the peaceful death he asked for, but he's sinking, sinking, sinking. He tries to right himself in order to swim towards the surface, but there seems to be no surface, only an expanse as endless as the sky he just left. As far as he can see, he is the only creature in the ocean for miles around, a tiny, insignificant speck in the boundless, infinite sea. 

His scream dissolves into the ocean as infinitesimal points of oxygen in an ocean full of them, going unnoticed by anything that could help him. 


End file.
